ABORTION ALTERNATIVE DEFENDED

Catalyst April Issue 1999, Front Page

Germaine Greer, one of the world’s leading feminists, stunned her English colleagues when she blasted feminists for trumpeting their “pro-abortion” politics. In her new book,The Whole Woman Abortion, Greer continues to argue the necessity of keeping abortion legal, but criticizes feminists for touting abortion as a victory for women. Greer is best known for her earlier work, The Female Eunuch, which was a radical feminist attack on men and marriage.

“A woman who is unable to protect her cervix from exposure to male hyperfertility is certainly not calling the shots,” writes Greer. She faults those who take pride in presenting to irresponsible women the “right” to abortion. “The crowning insult is that this ordeal is represented to her as some kind of a privilege: her sad and onerous duty is garbed in the rhetoric of a civil right.” Greer, now 60, blames her own infertility on an abortion she had while she was a student.

Best of all, Greer has publicly defended Cardinal Thomas Winning’s program which pays pregnant women considering abortion for abandoning their plans. In the past two years, 50 babies have been born to such women, mostly unmarried teenagers; there are now 50 more on the way. This is what real choice means, Greer says.

By taking this first step, we hope that Greer, and others, may someday realize that abortion is never a good option for anyone.